COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins under pressure to release findings of border testing review

National MP Chris Bishop is pressuring COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins to release the findings of an independent review into the Government's border testing system. 

The Government commissioned the COVID-19 Surveillance and Testing Strategy Group under urgency in August after it emerged border response workers weren't getting tested for the virus as thoroughly as the Government had been led to believe. 

Led by former Prime Minister Helen Clark's chief of staff Heather Simpson and Sir Brian Roche, whose background involves chairing a wide range of boards including NZTA, the pair were tasked with identifying flaws in the system. 

Hipkins revealed in Parliament last week his office received a copy of the report on September 30. It was sent back to the panel after the Ministry of Health disagreed with some of the findings, and the final report was delivered on November 27. 

"The report should have been released before the election - but as we learned today in Parliament, the Government has simply sat on the report since then. The minister would not even commit today in Parliament to releasing the report before Christmas," Bishop said earlier this week.  

"This is simply unacceptable - The suspicion must be that the Ministry of Health has spent the time since September 30 fighting to stop the report being released and trying to change the findings of the independent panel."

Bishop said there is even more reason for the report to be released without any changes that may be insisted on by the Ministry of Health. But Hipkins said there are implications in the report that Cabinet needs to consider. 

"The issue is, it deals with some machinery of Government issues - some people's jobs can be affected by changes to the way machinery of Government is organised and it's appropriate that we go through a proper process," he told reporters. 

National's COVID-19 response spokesperson Chris Bishop.
National's COVID-19 response spokesperson Chris Bishop. Photo credit: Newshub / Zane Small

"We're certainly not going to be delaying the release of the report. The key thing is that I want Cabinet to be able to make the decisions. 

"I think it will do that fairly soon."

Hipkins pushed back when asked if jobs could be lost as a result of the findings. 

"I wasn't saying that. I'm just saying that reporting lines around things might change and so on and it's important that people have clarity on that when those decisions get taken."

Bishop asked Hipkins in Parliament why it has taken so long for the Government to release and respond to the findings. 

"A new Government has been sworn in," Hipkins shot back. 

"The Ministry of Health did disagree with some aspects of the report. That is one of the reasons why I asked the review panel to go and consult with them. 

COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins.
COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins. Photo credit: Newshub / Zane Small

"I think there's a natural justice process here and it's only fair that they have the opportunity to respond.

"The report makes a number of recommendations some of which the Government's yet to consider, some of them include budgetary matters. We will be looking to progress those as soon as possible but I won't put a particular timeframe on that."

Testing of border workers became mandatory on August 29. The requirements have been strengthened twice, with the latest update in November enforcing weekly testing of pilots and workers on aircraft and ships coming from overseas. 

The August outbreak in Auckland came after more than 100 days of no detected community transmission of COVID-19. Auckland finally shifted to alert level 1 on October 7 and has remained at that level ever since. 

The source of the August outbreak is still unknown. There have been other community outbreaks since then, such as the small Auckland cluster in October, but health officials were able to trace it to a port worker who was infected via a ship that arrived from Australia. 

The most recent community case in November was a retail worker in Auckland whose infection was traced to a Defence Force worker who became infected at the Jet Park quarantine facility